Founded (and originally known as) the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, the University of California, Los Angeles, more commonly known as simply UCLA, has occupied a 419-acre campus in the Westwood section of Los Angeles since 1929. The campus, bounded by the tony Los Angeles neighborhoods of Brentwood, Westwood, Little Holmby Hills, and Bel Air, is renowned for its professional schools in film, medicine, and law; its undergraduate programs in many disciplines are highly rated as well.

The Student Store located in the Ackerman Union. Currently, UCLA has 11 colleges and divisions:

Anderson School of Management

Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

The Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science

School of the Arts and Architecture

School of Dentistry

School of Law

School of Medicine

School of Nursing

School of Public Health

School of Public Policy and Social Research

School of Theater, Film and Television

Like other UC campuses, UCLA's 179 buildings are continually under construction/renovation. Some of its more noted buildings include the original four buildings (Royce, Kinsey, Haynes, and Powell), which often appear in films as a "unnamed" or fictional Ivy League-style campus. Other buildings include Pauley Pavilion, Kaufman Hall, and Ackerman Union.

In sports, UCLA is a Division I school, and carries on a rivalry with cross-town USC; its football team practices on campus, but plays their home games at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Their mascot is the grizzly bear, with costumed mascots known as Joe and Josie Bruin. This campus pride is reflected in "Bruin Walk" and the bronze Bruin Bear in Bruin Plaza, at the end of Bruin Walk.

UCLA currently has 24,811 undergraduates and 10,814 graduates (Fall 2005). As of June 2003, there are 331,226 UCLA alumni.